I still stand by my assessment that Charles King Cavalier Spaniels are probably one of the breeds that I always have the most fun photographing. To be honest, before I actually had a chance to work with them, I thought they were weird looking dogs. But while they may look weird (or adorable now, at this point), they definitely make up for it in terms of their playful, sweet, and lively personalities.

So you can only imagine how excited I was when Monica, vet/owner of FourPawsWellness, contacting me about photographing her two CKCSs. But then she mentioned that she wanted to add her kids to the shoot. And in my head, I was like “Oh. 😬”.

I haven’t really worked with kids that much, and being the youngest child in my family, I didn’t really have much experience with younger children. So as you might imagine, I was a bit apprehensive. But you know what, I think after this shoot, I’ve discovered working with kids is actually really refreshing!

I think somewhere along the way of becoming a “responsible adult”, we become subdued in our manners, and self-conscious. What was refreshing about working with kids, is they’re much more “honest”. In this case, photographing Monica’s kids with their pups was a complete blast.

I’ve always been about candids and emotions over technically correct images, and this shoot couldn’t be a more perfect example. There were so many great shots, I had a really hard time picking out which images to show. Here are a few faves (many which ended up in their 28 page photobook!)

As for the background in Darwin + Biscotti? Darwin is described as the “Oh perfect dog” while Biscotti, who is super sweet, doesn’t seem to be quite all there. 🤔 But his family still loves him all the same! ❤️❤️❤️

This has been more common as of late, but when I ask my clients why they decided to book me, it’s often because they regret not getting photos of another pup that had passed. After my brother’s dog, Brophy, unexpectedly passed earlier this month, I completely understand where they’re coming from. Even though I photographed Brophy almost every year since 2011, it was almost more on a whimsical basis than a dedicated one, and I really regret not doing a more focused photoshoot on him with his human. While I have a lot of great images of him, I honestly wish I had more…

After seeing my cards at Dogtopia Birmingham, Heather decided to book a session for Bleu and Jack, as she wanted to have some lovely photos that captured their personality (and having regretted not doing so for one of the other pups that had passed). Bleu and Jack are two happy-go-lucky Golden Retrievers that couldn’t be more different than each other despite looking so similar! Bleu was more content to be with his humans and watch from the sidelines, while Jack was all about that ball! I think almost every photo that I captured of him was with him playing. I’m pretty sure even if we weren’t doing the photoshoot, he would probably still be entertaining himself, haha. Can you guess which one is which? I’ll give you a hint, if the ball doesn’t give it a way–Bleu is wearing the blue collar (And now that I think about it, was that intentional? Haha).

Whew! Finally found some time to blog during this crazy time of the year!

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I always like to ask my clients to share a little bit about their pet’s personality, and their favorite memories of them, and I have to say Kelley had me laughing and astonished at multiple times during our meeting. She has two pups, Ruby and Layla, and one sweet but mischievous cat named Gunner.

Ruby (the one with the funny white eyebrows) was adopted from a farm as a puppy, and has since grown up to be what would be described as a sassy, skeptical older lady. She can be a bit dramatic because when she disagrees with you, she likes to shake her head no, stomp her feet, and woof at you. She definitely gave me a lot of skeptical looks while I was photographing her, but I think she decided I was okay after the tons of treats.

Gunner is the black cat that Kelley was watching for a friend but ended up keeping after never being asked for him back. She’s not complaining though because he’s seriously the best cat ever–more like a dog in a cat’s body as she describes it! He has since given her many fond memories (or what was probably heart attacks then); being an escape artist, he soon figured out how to open the lever on the front door and let himself (and Ruby) out. Thankfully, nothing bad happened! Gunner was hilarious during our shoot because he definitely tried to escape/take off after the squirrels in the back yard when we weren’t looking!

Layla is a recent addition to the family. She was rescued and adopted from the Michigan Humane Society. While not much is known about Layla’s background, although based on how she reacts around people (terrified of men), it’s suspected that she was abused in her previous situation (so sad!). We weren’t sure how she would do with being photographed, and she actually ended up being terrified of the camera, but we were able to manage to pull off a few sweet shots of her. And when I didn’t have my camera in hand, she was super sweet and happily accepted head pats and treats from me.